90s

It’s been a while, but I figured this was a good time to jump back into cartoon reviews. This weekend we lost Adam West who had many credits to his name, but is – obviously – best known for portraying Bruce Wayne/Batman in the 1960s TV series. For decades, the show has lived on in syndication and generations of people have all been thrilled by the campy fun of West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin.

Personally, I loved the 60s Batman series and when they recently released the animated BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERSmovie last year, I was hyped. It was done in the same tone as the original series and featured West, Ward and Julie Newmar (Catwoman) all reprising their famous roles some half-century after the fact.

Twenty-five years ago, however, there was a different Batman tribute to Adam West and it came in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series which was a huge deal on FOX in 1992. The series itself is terrific, still holds up and can be streamed on Amazon Prime if you feel inclined to give it a watch, but the eighteenth episode in particular is notable for a certain guest star: Adam West.

Welcome to the Wednesday edition of the Daily Cartoon on Car JoeMez! We’ve got something…something for you today so let’s get the other stuff out of the way quickly.

The podcast! Listen to it! A new episode every week talking about shit you like. It’s legit. Find it on iTunes, Soundcloud or wherever you download your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe, leave a review and tell your friends to do the same.

In 1992, Disney released a movie called THE MIGHTY DUCKS that featured a ragtag group of Pee-Wee hockey playing underdog kids from Minnesota overcoming the odds and defeating the much more talented and wealthy team from a neighboring district all under the guidance of Emilio Estevez who was sporting some great fucking hair.

Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Daily Cartoon on Car JoeMez! Before we get started, here’s your daily reminder to check out the weekly shoe, The Car JoeMez Podcast, on iTunes, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts. This week’s episode features Gomez and I discussing the music of our adolescence as well as completely shitting on the list of top fast food items put out by The Ringer. It’s probably one of my favorite episodes that we’ve done so, please, go give it a listen, leave a review, subscribe and share it with friends. Everything is better with friends.

Today’s show is Toxic Crusaders! I remember having seen this as a kid, but don’t remember it sticking around all that long. I kind of remember enjoying it, but it wasn’t even close to something I was all about. I’d remember it a lot better if I did. Apparently, it did reach some level of popularity as they were a bunch of licensed items from comic books, a board game, a toy line and even a video game for NES, GameBoy and Genesis. I don’t ever remember this being THAT popular to necessitate all of that.

Looking at the toys, there’s a lot to similarities to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line. Which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise as both lines were made by Playmates around the same time.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the game is awful. I’m going to go out on an even further limb and say I’ll probably try hunting it down on eBay over the weekend.

The reason all this merchandising surprises me is that the series only produced 13 episodes and I genuinely don’t remember it being a big thing in the school yards as a kid seeing as how I was only 9-10 years old when this was aired. Maybe people just expected it to take off like another TMNT or something. I don’t know. Either way, I’m kind of excited to check this out and see if anything jogs my memory.

Quick little background on this: the main focus is Toxie, the ugly green sludge monster we see on the video games and in the center of anything promoting this who has superpowers and is a really nice guy under his horribly disfigured appearance. Toxie and friends do battle with the evil villains from the planet Smogula who want to do irreparable harm to the environment. Hmmm…maybe we should get Toxie to have a talk with that new president guy.

We open with the Toxic Crusaders playing football in what appears to be the dump when Toxie’s Tromatons start tingling. Tromatons are basically this dude’s Spidey-Sense so that means evil must be near. At this point, a small sack drops onto his head where a small insect is nestled on the inside.

Cut to the planet of Smogula, where Czar Zosta, the head bad guy is demoting Dr. Killemoff (think Krang/Shredder type of relationship here) because of his inability to rid them of the Toxic Crusaders. In his place will be General GarBage who is this termite-looking motherfucker who grows to be a giant bug wearing traditional military garb. In the smaller state, he also looks exactly like the bug that just fell on Toxie’s head.

General GarBage explains his master plan to Dr. Killemoff and it…is…a…doozy. He’s going to drop a shit ton of tiny bugs all over the town of Tromaville, New Jersey (home to the Toxic Avengers) where they will bite little old ladies and become perfect clones of them, albeit with four arms. He thinks that nobody will suspect his old lady clones and he’ll easily be able to infiltrate the town and take it over for good.

As far as evil plans go for some of the shows we’ve been watching lately, this one is actually pretty solid.

The clones lock up all the original old biddies somewhere nobody would ever think to look: Tromaville City Hall while they start driving the residents out-of-town due to their nonstop nagging and complaining. This makes the town ripe for a Smogula invasion. Toxie, meanwhile, gets a super-duper Tromaton alert when someone mentions his Mom and he heads out to figure out what could be wrong.

Unfortunately for Toxie, he’s met by his imposter Mom on the way to her house where she informs him that him and the rest of the Toxic Crusaders are being deported to Siberia because they’re too ugly to live in Tromaville. Normally, I’d say we shouldn’t discriminate against those less good-looking, but, real talk: Tromaville is in New Jersey so c’mon, there’s really not a lot to work with there and people REALLY have no right to judge. Toxie heads to the dump to inform the rest of the Crusaders.

Dr. Killemoff, in lieu of being excited about the plan working, is up and arms. He’s desperate for General GarBage to fail so he can get his top spot back. Fuck, the politics that exist even when being a bad guy from Smogula aren’t much different from that of being an American senator.

The Crusaders board a ship bound for Siberia, but are surprised when it’s only a 10 minute trip. When they debark, they’re met by Dr. Killemoff who informs these idiots that they’re in Island City and not Siberia, but that he’ll also make a deal: defeat General GarBage’s clones and they can return to Tromaville. The Crusaders, obviously, are thrilled. In the immortal words of Bon Jovi, who says you can’t go home?

When the Crusaders return to Tromaville, they’re ambushed by the clone biddies. They refuse to fight back because – even though they’re imposters – they still don’t feel comfortable hitting old women. This is rectified by the real old biddies showing up en masse after a group jailbreak and laying out the fakers. They hit their finishing move of hitting them in the face with hair spray which transforms the clones back into the insects they began as.

General GarBage launches an attack with a bunch of Smogulan troops who are handled with ease by the Toxic Crusaders. Toxie even grabs a can of hairspray and hits General GarBage with a big spritz which shrinks him down to a tiny general. The bad guys retreat and Tromaville is once again saved by its lovable group of mutant superheroes.

Final Thoughts:

This show is terrific! It’s completely in on the joke with how ridiculous the premise is and makes no secret of hiding it. It’s fun, it’s witty, it’s an all-around good time.

Seriously, go out of your way and track this down to give it a watch. It’s streaming on Amazon Prime right now which is how I watched, but there’s also a DVD collection out there. With only 13 episodes, it’s not even a real commitment so it’s perfect to knock out over a slow weekend.

Seriously had a good time with this show and glad I saw it sitting there on Amazon. Go watch and get back at me with your thoughts.

After a much-needed weekend respite, welcome back to the Daily Cartoon on Car JoeMez! Remember to check out the latest episode of the show, The Car JoeMez Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe, like, rate, leave a review and share it with your friends.

I wanted to start the week off with something light and I remembered that Animaniacs was on Netflix and voila! I can’t admit to being a big fan of this show when I was a kid. I liked it, thought it was OK, but it was nothing I was ever too into. Also, by the time of its premiere (September 13, 1993 – which also happened to be my 12th birthday) I was already into the too-old for cartoons stage of life so only kept a passing interest in this.

I’ve since watched some episodes here and there since it was added to the streaming services and I have enjoyed the ones I’ve watched. There’s a lot of adult humor in there that I’m 100% positive I didn’t get or understand as a kid, but makes me do the “how the fuck did they sneak that one in there?!”

In addition, this show also introduced us to Pinky & The Brain who eventually got their own spinoff that – dare I say – was even better than the home base they emerged from. As a whole, Animaniacs lasted 99 episodes total combined from its runs on Fox and then, eventually, Kids WB and was pretty popular for its time. Not that it had a toy line that I can remember, but I know for a fact that it had a video game on Genesis and Super Nintendo. I even have the Genesis version!

See? I wasn’t lying. Hell, I’ve even got the Warners in Funko form too!

So, yeah, I suppose I’ve grown to appreciate this show much more as I’ve gotten older and re-watched it here and there. One thing I did absolutely love as a kid, however was this:

I would say that’s enough background on this show. Let’s watch a cartoon.

Animaniacs: S.1, E.24: “Opportunity Knox/Wings Take Heart”

Originally Aired: October 18, 1993

We open with a quick infomercial where the Warner brothers and their sister, Dot, want to shave you bald for just $19.95. They demonstrate on that poor security guard that they’re always terrorizing around the Warner movie lot. Cute and quick and sends us into the opening theme which will get in your head like nobody’s business.

From there, we go into a Pinky and the Brain bit. Pinky wonders what Brain wants to do tonight and, of course, Brain informs him that they’ll try to do the same thing they do every night: try to take over the world.

Brain has invented a new strain of pollen that causes a temporary allergic fit in all humans and plans to use it to rob Fort Knox. How do they plan on even getting to Fort Knox? They’ll use one of the labs technological resources: the minivan.

Of course, just miles away from Fort Knox, the duo get pulled over, but are able to get out of it by telling the officer that once they control all of the world’s gold, their budget will result in substantial spending increases for law enforcement.

They arrive at Fort Knox, hit the security team with Brain’s allergy pollen and then go about lifting all the gold. There’s just one problem: gold bars are heavy AF and Pinky and the Brain are lab mice who are unable to move them. They end up dropping the first bar they lift on top of themselves and the next we see of them, are back in their cage at Acme Labs sporting slings and bandages where Brain promises a better plan for tomorrow night. Pinky asks what they’ll be doing then and Brain answers, “the same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!”

We then segue into a quick “Good Idea, Bad Idea” segment that was used to buffer between stories. Good idea: stopping to smell the roses. Bad idea: stopping to feel the roses and puncturing yourself on thorns on the stem of said roses.

It’s on to our second story of the day, “Wings Take Heart”. A nondescript insect is taking a nap when he spots a beautiful butterfly girl and becomes immediately smitten. She spots him gawking at her in her mirror while she’s brushing her hair. They make eye contact and start flying all over town together.

OK, let me hit pause for a second. Folks, I can tell you from tons of experience that creepily staring at chicks from across the way never ends up with you flying all over town with them. Never. Sometimes they make and uggo face at you. Sometimes they turn around. Sometimes they flip you the bird or send their really big boyfriend over to you so he can ask what your problem is. At no point does it work out like this show has thus far. Just something to keep in mind next time you’re feeling like a creep at the bar.

Our unnamed insect is about to kiss his dream butterfly when he’s suddenly smashed by a passing tractor-trailer. And I’m not talking about former basketball great Robert “Tractor” Traylor either.

Our bug protagonist gets shuttled around from a number of different trucks that end up smashing him and taking him further and further away from where he needs to be when finally his little bug body has had all it can stand. He’s done. Laid out. A mama vulture picks him up to feed to her kids, but there’s a forest fire bearing down, so she packs up her hatchlings and takes off. Our beaten bug tries escaping, but he’s no match for the quick-moving fire.

Just when it looks as if all hope is lost, a helicopter does a massive water drop on the fire which washes it out and flows our little guy to temporary safety. He’s floating on a leaf and about to fall into a sewer drain when he sees his pretty butterfly girlfriend sitting under a rose crying. He calls to her, she perks up, he flies up and finally gets his kiss.

Now, I think it’s important to state that this is also ridiculous. Everybody knows that these hoes ain’t loyal. The second he was taken away, you know that butterfly chick was gonna be on Bug-Tinder or back in the bars getting a new thirsty-ass dude to give her some attention. She certainly ain’t going to be sitting under a rose waiting for this dude to just appear out of nowhere like an RKO again. This is just reality. This is how the world works. Plenty of other bugs all over.

Now with both of our stories for the day concluded, the Warners pull out the Wheel of Morality to tell us today’s learned lesson: “If you can’t say something nice, you’re probably at the Ice Capades”. Hahahahaahahahahahahhaahahahahahahhaha. Poor Ice Capades. I actually went once when I was a kid and the big thing was Super Mario Bros. I remember having a good time. But, for now, sick burn, Yakko.

Final Thoughts:

This show is great. There was a couple of swipes at Disney in there which, for the time, were probably scandalous, but they’re done tongue-in-cheek and are pretty funny. The show as a whole is a good time.

I don’t really get the whole bug story, but it just was what it was and the music overlayed did a really good job of conveying danger and emotions in the vein of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons.

The more of these shows that I watch, I become convinced that they’re just not meant to be binge-watched. An episode here or there, fine, but if I tried running three, four episodes in a row, I may hate myself.

But for one episode and 20 minutes today, this was fun and is probably something I could just put on with my sleep timer as I’m going to bed some nights.

I know for a fact there are DVD sets of this show available, but you can find all 99 episodes on Netflix as well if you’re looking to check it out which I think you should. Especially if it’s something you haven’t watched in a while. I think you’ll be able to appreciate a lot of the jokes and humor a lot better as a learned adult. Thumbs up.

Check out the latest episode of the show! This week, we’re talking the music that shaped our adolesence, but also losing our shit over the bullshit Top Fast Food Items list put out this week by Bill Simmons’ The Ringer. It’s a good time so find us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher & Google Play and please subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends!

Welcome to another exciting edition of the Daily Cartoon on Car JoeMez! Today’s show is another special request from another podcast listener, Drunk Irish Jay. He likes the show and so will you so go subscribe to The Car JoeMez Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts. Like, leave a review and share with your friends.

Today’s show is Bucky O’Hare And The Toad Wars. I literally know nothing about this show besides a vague memory of toy commercials back in the day that had a kick ass theme song over them.

I never had toys, I never played the video game, I’ve never seen this cartoon. So this is a brand new experience for me. The show only lasted 13 episodes, but a quick Google search shows it’s definitely got its fair share of followers and fans.

That’s one of the cool things about checking out these shows and writing these things up: you learn. Sure, it’s all useless knowledge, but it’s fun to go back and see these things and see the fanbases and collections for them. So keep these suggestions and requests coming my way because I’m having a good time doing this.

OK, so back to Bucky. Basically, from what I gather, the plot of this show is about a humanoid bunny and his crew who are trying to stop a group of evil toads who are hellbent on universal domination. Easy enough. I think I can handle this. Let’s watch a cartoon.

Bucky O’Hare And The Toad Wars: E.5: “On The Blink”

Originally Aired: October 6, 1991

Plot:

So there’s a planet of koalas and a rogue bear is sending an SOS to Bucky O’Hare saying that their planet has been overtaken and turned into a resort/hotel for toads. Bucky immediately sets course for that planet.

In the meantime, we get some terrific scenes of the koalas serving toads at the resort; giving them massages, acting as caddies while they golf and feeding them while they sunbathe. This shit is great. I like these toads.

Bucky and Deadeye Duck head into the koala planet’s atmosphere, but can’t get through because of some kind of intense force field. Turns out it’s mammal-proof so neither Bucky nor his crew will be able to breakthrough.

Jenny – Bucky’s first mate who is a sort of fancy cat lady – calls Willy DuWitt – their human friend who acts as a sort of tech guru – on some kind of two-way mirror communicator. It’s like the one Dumbledore’s brother had when Harry was asking for help with getting into Hogwarts before the final battle with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Jenny begs Willy to transport to their ship, The Righteous Indignation, immediately as they need his expertise. Willy DuWitt is a young boy who looks to be all of 10 years-old. I don’t care how fucking smart he is, I’m not entrusting this little geek with the safety of the universe.

Willy shows up and quickly figures out that the force field is mammal-proof so he comes up with an idea to send the crew’s robot, Blinky, in because he won’t be blocked from entering the airspace. OK, that’s pretty smart, I suppose. Blinky does make it through to the koala planet, but is quickly found out and captured by Toad Borg who is one of the top-level baddies here. He’s a giant half-toad, half-robot thing, but is all evil.

They give Blinky some shock treatment and then leave, so Blinky frees himself and steals a hover-spacecraft belonging to the toads to head back to Bucky’s ship. Turns out that Toad Borg re-programmed Blinky when he had him captured and this was all just a clever ruse to have Blinky sabotage The Righteous Indignation. It looks like curtains for Bucky O’Hare and team as the ship hurdles toward the sun.

Willy DuWitt goes into crazy emergency science-mode and fixes Blinky. They send the robot back to the koala planet under the guise that he’s still reprogrammed and he deactivates the defense shield. Willy is able to fix the hyper-drive on the ship and they head to the koala planet to take care of business.

A short battle ensues and Bucky, Deadeye, Jenny, Willy and Blinky are trapped. But Bruiser – a brawler baboon – comes in and beats up a couple of toads and chases them off the planet so the koalas have their home back.

Final Thoughts:

I fucking love these toads. They have zero scruples. My kinda fellas.

I really want to check out the rest of this series after seeing this one episode now. I like the characters and I like shit happening in space so this definitely appeals to my interests.

I’m interested in what the back story for the crew is here. Are they the only good guys? Is there a whole fleet of good guys and this just happens in their section of the galaxy that they’re assigned to patrol? By any chance is Chinese Moon Supervisor from Independence Day 2 involved? God, I wish he was.

But, yeah, I want to see how these toads became such big heels and how this whole situation grew. So, obviously, I’m giving this a thumbs-up. There’s some episodes on YouTube, but I believe there’s also a DVD set of all 13 episodes. If you’re interested, go check that out and then report back to me with your thoughts.

Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Cartoon on Car JoeMez! Remember to check out the weekly show, The Car JoeMez Podcast, on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to a couple of episodes, subscribe and leave a review because that stuff all helps and I’d appreciate it.

As for today’s cartoon, we’ll be watching an episode of James Bond, Jr. As the title implies, this show was basically a type of Flintstones Kids but with the nephews and kids of characters from the Bond universe.

The show had one 65 episode season produced for syndication that aired between 1991-1992. Personally, I remember it as a show that I’d watch while I was eating breakfast before my mom shuttled me off to school in the mornings. I don’t remember it really ever catching fire, but it may have been more popular than I remember because it had a toy line…

…and a video game!

I can’t say I ever had any of that stuff or even played the game, but I remember the show being OK enough for some early morning entertainment.

The basic premise that James Bond, Jr. (nephew of the actual James Bond) attends a prestigious school with classmates IQ (grandson of Q) and Gordo Leiter (son of Felix Leiter). The team up to battle the villainous group known as SCUM (Saboteurs and Criminals United in Mayhem).

If I were the bad guys, I’d totally use the abbreviation too. Someone just put way too much thought into that name. I wonder if there’s an episode where they just sit around brainstorming names. That’d fill 22 minutes, I’m sure.

So that’s the background on JBJ, so – with that said – let’s watch a cartoon.

James Bond, Jr.: Episode 9: “The Eiffel Missile”

First off, the intro to this show is pretty good. The song is really catchy and it’s the main thing I remember about this show 25 years after the fact. You’ll probably like it too.

We open at Heathrow Airport where James Bond, Jr. is returning to England after a trip abroad. As he’s coming through customs, he recognizes Skullcap, a SCUM agent causing a ruckus on another of the lines. JBJ goes after Skullcap who evades him and runs out of the airport and on the ramp where a plane is being loaded for takeoff. Skullcap hijacks the plane and Bond, Jr. requisitions a staircar to chase him.

Apparently, he’s taken the most powerful staircar ever built because he’s able to not only keep up with the airplane, but get in front of it right before Skullcap is able to takeoff. Bond boards the plane and – after a brief fight – grabs an envelope that Skullcap is trying to protect before hitting the ejector seat and leaving Skullcap to die in a fiery crash that we don’t see, but I’ll just assume happens.

Bond gets admonished by the headmaster of his academy for doing stupid, dangerous shit on school grounds and shit like that is why they’re cancelling the school trip to Paris. Supposedly, terrorists have smuggled a nuclear warhead into Paris and the school needs to protect their students. I guess we have our mystery for the day.

While James is getting a workout in, IQ, Gordo and other friends Tracy and Phoebe are watching him and discussing the nuclear weapon thing. Turns out that the envelope JBJ grabbed from Skullcap contained plans for such a nuclear weapon and Bond is fired up about wanting to go to Paris and foil this plot. As soon as he says that, Mr. Mitchell, the school’s athletic director comes in to have a casual chat with the group. He knows all of JBJ’s off-campus activities and gives him a tip as to when would be a good time to leave school grounds to head to Paris.

The crew take a hovercraft to Paris since JBJ is temporarily banned from the airport and are met by an undercover SCUM operative who clues in the big bads that Bond is on board. All of a sudden, Skullcap show up in a helicopter very undead despite his absolutely tragic and unseen demise in an awful, horrible , violent plane crash that I assume happened at the beginning of the episode and begins shooting at the hovercraft. Luckily, they turn the tables and force Skullcap into another crash landing that I’m sure will have finally killed him for good this time.

James goes on a dinner-date with a girl from the hovercraft ride who I thought was a SCUM agent, but turns out is the daughter of a French policeman. Their date is interrupted by Dr. Derange (one of the top guys in SCUM) and Skullcap, who is still not fucking dead, but JBJ and his lady friend, Marci take care of business and go searching for the warhead together.

Marci informs James that in addition to the streets of Paris, she also knows the sewers so the two head out through the underground toward the Eiffel Tower since James is certain that’s where they’ll find the warhead. They come upon the underground lair of Dr. Derange and find what they were looking for. Unfortunately, James and Marci are captured by Skullcap (still not dead) and the two are chained to the missile which is being geared up to be shot to Moscow.

James uses his trusty laser-watch to cut the chains and free him and Marci. He then rips out the navigation wiring from the side of the warhead which sends it into space instead of Moscow. James and Marci return to the lair looking to apprehend Dr. Derange, but he’s already gone and has sworn revenge for another day.

Final Thoughts:

I actually really enjoyed this! Got your typical cartoon cheesiness, but in a fun way and I really liked Dr. Derange. Apparently he’s one of the most active villains in this series and I would definitely watch more to see what else he’s got going on.

I killed off Skullcap three times without him actually dying once. My apologies to the Skullcap family.

The Bond crew is OK, but – in this episode, at least – they didn’t get overexposed and I was thankful for that. Gordo, IQ and Tracy serve their purposes well enough, but the Phoebe girl is Tracy’s nerd BFF who has this over-spoken crush on JBJ and I’m sure it gets very annoying very easily.

If you want to check this out, there is a DVD set available, but YouTube isn’t that great. It’s got some episodes, but in very meh quality and broken up into parts which gets annoying. I may check out some more episodes if I get some time because I did have fun with it so feel free to do the same.